iOS 17.4 presents quite a lot of adjustments for the App Retailer and iPhone within the European Union. This contains issues like third-party app marketplaces and help for various browser engines. One byproduct of those adjustments, nevertheless, is that iOS 17.4 removes help for Dwelling Display net apps within the EU.
Apple has now provided an evidence for this resolution, confirming that the omission was not a bug. As a substitute, it’s due to necessities below the Digital Markets Act.
Net apps on iOS 17.4 within the EU
Final week, iPhone customers within the European Union observed that they have been not in a position to set up and run net apps on their iPhone’s Dwelling Display in iOS 17.4. Apple has added quite a lot of options over time to enhance help for progressive net apps on iPhone. For instance, iOS 16.4 allowed PWAs to ship push notifications with icon badges.
One change in iOS 17.4 is that the iPhone now helps various browser engines within the EU. This permits firms to construct browsers that don’t use Apple’s WebKit engine for the primary time. Apple says that this modification, required by the Digital Markets Act, is why it has been pressured to take away Dwelling Display net apps help within the European Union.
Apple explains that it must construct an “fully new integration structure that doesn’t presently exist in iOS” to handle the “advanced safety and privateness considerations related to net apps utilizing various browser engines.”
This work “was not sensible to undertake given the opposite calls for of the DMA and the very low person adoption of Dwelling Display net apps,” Apple explains. “And so, to adjust to the DMA’s necessities, we needed to take away the Dwelling Display net apps characteristic within the EU.”
“EU customers will be capable of proceed accessing web sites immediately from their Dwelling Display via a bookmark with minimal influence to their performance,” Apple continues.
It’s comprehensible that Apple wouldn’t provide help for Dwelling Display net apps for third-party browsers. However why did it additionally take away help for Dwelling Display net apps for Safari? Sadly, that’s one other facet impact of the Digital Markets Act.
The DMA requires that every one browsers have equality, that means that Apple can’t favor Safari and WebKit over third-party browser engines. Due to this fact, as a result of it could possibly’t provide Dwelling Display net apps help for third-party browsers, it can also’t provide help by way of Safari.
Apple’s full clarification follows, which was revealed on Apple’s developer web site at the moment:
To adjust to the Digital Markets Act, Apple has carried out an unlimited quantity of engineering work so as to add new performance and capabilities for builders and customers within the European Union – together with greater than 600 new APls and a variety of developer instruments.
The iOS system has historically supplied help for Dwelling Display net apps by constructing immediately on WebKit and its safety structure. That integration means Dwelling Display net apps are managed to align with the safety and privateness mannequin for native apps on iOS, together with isolation of storage and enforcement of system prompts to entry privateness impacting capabilities on a per-site foundation.
With out the sort of isolation and enforcement, malicious net apps may learn information from different net apps and recapture their permissions to realize entry to a person’s digicam, microphone or location with no person’s consent. Browsers additionally may set up net apps on the system with no person’s consciousness and consent. Addressing the advanced safety and privateness considerations related to net apps utilizing various browser engines would require constructing a wholly new integration structure that doesn’t presently exist in iOS and was not sensible to undertake given the opposite calls for of the DMA and the very low person adoption of Dwelling Display net apps. And so, to adjust to the DMA’s necessities, we needed to take away the Dwelling Display net apps characteristic within the EU.
EU customers will be capable of proceed accessing web sites immediately from their Dwelling Display via a bookmark with minimal influence to their performance. We count on this modification to have an effect on a small variety of customers. Nonetheless, we remorse any influence this modification — that was made as a part of the work to adjust to the DMA — could have on builders of Dwelling Display net apps and our
iOS 17.4 is presently accessible to builders and public beta testers, and is slated for a launch in early March.
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